Better Planet » waste

SUV-Trashing Blogger Seeks Suggestions, Gets Huge

Benjamin Nugent — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 20:31:50 +0000

So you no longer want to be a scourge of everything we hold dear / friend to Saudi Arabia. You want to throw away your SUV. But how is it done? A San Franciscan named Ryan Mickle raised the question for real on a web site this month, and little by little became a web phenom.

People wrote in with insults, bad suggestions (fill it with concrete, throw it in the ocean and maybe it will become a reef), and some less insane ones (find a way to donate it to people in a poor remote village somewhere who will use it efficiently, as a transport vehicle). Even if you hate PR stunts, this one poses a legit question: what are we going to do with our many, various, increasingly hated, polluting machines, given that throwing them away or burning them is so counterproductive?My suggestion (probably already voiced by somebody): take off the wheels, gut them, and turn them into stationary dwellings for homeless people, in sprawling cities where there is space for fields of dead SUVs. Which would admittedly create conglomerations resembling vast, drugs-afflicted trailer parks without toilets, yes. Let’s see you do better. Image: flickr/Kevin Saff

Forbes Out-Greens Green Consumerists

Benjamin Nugent — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:23:57 +0000

Forbes.com has a good piece up about how not to get duped by greenwashing construction and home design brands. It describes in concise, user-friendly detail exactly why so may products that have green seals on them are harmful to the planet.

This makes Forbes greener, at the moment, than a whole lot of Web and print publications out there that have “green” in their titles. The problem with green-oriented sites is often that the editorial impulses encouraged by the publishing business—generally there is somebody like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, and that person is generally saying, ‘get me some big beautiful pictures of things people can buy’—are inherently pretty un-green. The idea, as Forbes points out, is to go to the salvage yard, not the boutique, and to never replace anything when you don’t have to. You shouldn’t chuck your old linoleum floor in a landfill so you can install the green-friendly floor you saw on Greenoramatopiafuntime.com.

Seattle the Epicenter of Something Again

Benjamin Nugent — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:53:07 +0000

The Seattle Times has a good story about a mayoral proposal to impose fees on any business that distributes stuff in paper or plastic bags, and to ban Styrofoam containers. For every paper bag or plastic bag you put, say, groceries in, you get charged 20¢. Also, those plastic forks with which you enjoy your beef pho in front of Mad Men? Banned. Even that little plastic bucket of chili sauce is going to have to be replaced with something biodegradable.

Mayor Greg Nickels’s proposed measure is headed toward a City Council vote; it’s expected to pass, and to go into effect in 2010. This is another example of Portland being the tail that wags the dog in the Northwest; the Oregonian bastion of rectitude banned Styrofoam containers in 1990.

A restaurant owner quoted in the Seattle Times piece speculates that this may lead directly to an uptick in chopstick usage. It’s interesting to contemplate which ancient skills will experience a renaissance as we get rid of environmentally destructive conveniences. Blacksmithing? (See this intruiging article about a guy in Montana). Stonemasonry?

Image: flickr/brookage